Beasley made his first start since Nov. 26. No, not because Udonis Haslem remained out, but because Jamario Moon (groin) was also out.

That kept Yakhouba Diawara in the starting lineup, this time at small forward to defend Paul Pierce.

Daequan Cook was back, entering in place of Mario Chalmers midway through the first quarter. He promptly converted his first 3-point attempt, before missing his remaining three shots of the first half.

Wade played early as the de facto Heat point guard, with five of the Heat's six first-quarter assists.

Chalmers finally got back to running the offense, which allowed Wade to turn his attention to scoring.

Chris Quinn came in for Wade at the start of the second quarter, in an odd alignment that had O'Neal at power forward and Jamaal Magloire at center.

That was after coach Erik Spoelstra previously said O'Neal lacked the mobility to play the four.

Later, Spoelstra utilized Quinn and Chalmers in tandem, which left Quinn to be toasted by Stephon Marbury. Quinn's appearance proved to be little more than a cameo.

Rebounding again was an issue, although O'Neal did his part early this time. O'Neal, though, did appear to run out of gas.

Why exactly did James Jones leave Paul Pierce on that late 3-pointer?

Wade's late miss Tuesday apparently was the start of a bad thing from the foul line. He was 4 of 9 from the line in the first half, again quite testy with the officials.

Dorell Wright was active, but still not ready to play, according to Spoelstra. It seems a bit odd that such a supposedly innocuous knee injury has kept Wright out for what basically is more than a year.